The spear is one of the most recognizable moves in professional wrestling history, and severalWWEsuperstars have made it their own. This charging tackle move is known to hit opponents with the force of a freight train, making it the perfect signature maneuver for several wrestlers.
Sometimes, the spear can be the final finishing blow in a wrestler’s arsenal before going for the pinfall, while other times, it’s the warm-up move towards another finisher. The impact can also vary depending on the size and weight of the wrestler using the attack.
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Only a few wrestlers have used spears in their time in WWE, but all of them have found a way to make each version of the move their own. Here are the greatest users of the spear in WWE history.
7Bron Breakker
Continuing The Steiner Legacy
As the son of Rick Steiner and the nephew of Scott Steiner, Bron Breakker had to establish his own name, not just by phoning it in and copying their predecessors. And while much of his wrestling style harks back to the days of the legendary tag team, his finishing move, the spear, is one he added to his arsenal all on his own.
Breakker is definitely someone on the smaller side of spear users, and because of that, it tends to look weaker than those of other wrestlers who will later appear on this list. However, what he lacks in size, he makes up for in pure energy, sinceevery spear he dishes out is like a shotgun blast to the chest.
My personal favorite spear he’s ever delivered is the one he hit Tyler Bate with at NXT Worlds Collide 2022 during their NXT and NXT UK title unification match. Bate was about to go for his Rebound Lariat when Breakker countered it, leaving the Brit lying motionless on the floor as the second-generation star went for the pinfall.
6Bobby Lashley
He Dominates The Competition
The Spear has never been Bobby Lashley’s main finisher in WWE, with him preferring the Dominator during his original run in the company during the Ruthless Aggression era and the Hurt Lock during his most recent stint. However, it has remained a huge part of his moveset throughout his entire career.
Like Breakker, Lashley has plenty of experience playing football, and like many large powerhouses who got their start on the gridiron, he adapted the spear as the natural evolution of a classic football tackle.
One of the more unique aspects of Lashley’s spear was that, in recent years, he’d often flip forward while hitting it, causing the opponent to flip over with him.
I personally do like this twist, as it gave his spear a unique identity that it lacked during his Ruthless Aggression run. That’s not to say his older spears were bad by any means, but they didn’t really stand out from the crowd of other users of the move.
The Animal Is Unleashed
When people think of Batista, they think of the Batista Bomb, andthis devastating sit-down power bombwould be his go-to tool to end his matches. However, the spear was also a crucial weapon of his that people often overlook.
Batista is nicknamed the Animal because his offense is like a wild beast going after its prey, and no move of his conveys that more than his spear. It looks especially devastating when he hits it on wrestlers that are much smaller than him, like Rey Mysterio.
Unfortunately, his spear doesn’t really add anything new to the table that other users haven’t done before and after him, and as such, I think it was definitely the right call to only have it be a signature move rather than his main finisher. I still like his spear, but the Batista Bomb will always give me much more excitement.
His Spear Is Rated R
Many people seem to dislike Edge’s spear, with the most common complaint being that he is too short and skinny to make the move look genuinely threatening on impact, but those people have always been looking at it the wrong way.
Edge’s wrestling style has always had the chaotic mentality of a serial killer, and his spear, rather than representing raw power, is all about speed and unpredictability.
These moves often come out of nowhere, and he always has a psychotic look in his eyes whenever he’s about to hit one that is sure to strike fear into whoever is about to be hit by it. It also helps that some of Edge’s most iconic moments,like the first WWE Money in the Bank cash-in, involved the spear.
One type of spear Edge particularly excelled at was using it as a midair counterattack. Perhaps the most famous example of this is when he knocked Jeff Hardy several feet to the ground during the triple-threat TLC tag team match at WrestleMania X-7, a signature moment in one of the most iconic matches in WWE history.
3Roman Reigns
It’s His Yard
Roman Reigns' spear has been the second-generation wrestler’s ultimate weapon since his arrival to WWE in 2012, and with his powerful physical presence, it’s no wonder he’s been its most prominent user in the past decade. Reigns continues the trend of former American football players adapting the move, and it has always looked incredibly powerful coming from him.
When he was in The Shield, Roman’s Spear would often serve as the final blow that would end a match, and it was better suited to that purpose than anything Seth Rollins or Dean Ambrose could pull out at the time.
Whenever The Shield were losing the upper hand in a match, a fresh Reigns would instantly turn things back in their favor with just one tackle.
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As a singles superstar, Reigns haswon several championshipsand key matches, including being responsible for one of The Undertaker’s losses at WrestleMania.
And while the Guillotine Choke would start to take center stage as his finisher during the Bloodline story, he’d continue to dish out Spears whenever he needed to, and eventually it would return to being his main finishing move.
Rhyno’s spear is notable in that it is the only one to have its own unique name: The Gore. This powerful variant is named such because it resembles the offense of the wrestler’s animal namesake: like a powerful rhinoceros ramming into its prey with its large, sharp horn.
The Gore has won the Man-Beast several championships and matches in ECW, TNA, and WWE, andhas been part of several iconic moments. Perhaps Rhyno’s most famous use of the move is when he tackled Chris Jericho into the screen of the SmackDown stage in 2001, paving the way for the introduction of the blue brand’s iconic Fist stage the following week.
With other spear users like Edge and Goldberg regularly outshining him during his time in WWE, Rhyno was never able to achieve the massive success he had in other companies like ECW and TNA. Still, though, the Man-Beast remains a fondly remembered part of the Ruthless Aggression era, and The Gore is a major reason why.
Who’s Next?
In my opinion, there can be no greater user of the spear than the wrestler who popularized it in the first place. Goldberg’s spear was rarely his finishing move, as he’d usually go for the Jackhammer right afterward, but it was still just as much a sight to behold as the latter move, asseeing the former NFL star tackling people off their feet and onto the ground was breathtaking.
Goldberg would use this move to notch win after win in WCW, staying undefeated for over a year and winning the WCW US and eventually the world championships. Every week, people we’re asking the same question Goldberg was: Who’s Next?
Goldberg’s time in WWE may have paled in comparison to his WCW days, but he still knew how to deliver some of the most epic spears of all time. Perhaps the greatest one he has ever delivered came when he tacked Chris Jericho into the glass of the Elimination Chamber door at 2003’s SummerSlam.
